A Thane court has awarded three years rigorous imprisonment to a 50-year-old man here for molesting a six-year-old physically disabled girl in 2016.
Special judge R N Bawankar also imposed a fine of Rs 4,000 on the accused Mohammad Nasir Abdul Rashid Shaikh while pronouncing the punishment last week.
According to the prosecution, the victim, residing in the Mumbra township here, went out of her home on October 21,
2016, to eat at a roadside food stall when the accused, who lived in her neighbourhood, forcibly took her away in an autorickshaw and allegedly raped her.
Later, the girl returned home but could not walk properly. She told her elder sister and mother about the incident.
The girl's parents then lodged a police complaint following which the accused was arrested and booked under IPC section 376 (rape) and relevant provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
After hearing both the sides and taking into account the medical report, the judge said ...

In a bid to spread the message of peace and love, a Kolkata-based psychologist and a businessman have come up with a music video that features differently-abled children expressing a range of emotions.

Work begins on T Nagar pedestrian plaza and Villivakkam lake facelift, while Mylapore wakes up to faulty SWD work, Koyambedu waits for new infrastructure and Chennai waits for Anna Salai to be two way again! A look at the week that went by. »

Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal today directed the Social Welfare Department to fine-tune its functioning and provide nutrition to women and children who are from the underprivileged section of the society.
Sonowal had earlier directed the streamlining of the department which led to the deletion of the names of non-existent children with the number of beneficiaries pruned to 35 lakh, thereby providing a relief to the state exchequer to the tune of Rs 150 crore every year, an official release said.
Sonowal had ordered an inquiry into the allegation of fraudulently entering 'ghost names' and siphoning off money from the Anganwadi Centres in the state.
Sonowal also urged Social Welfare Department's Principal Secretary Jishnu Baruah to expeditiously complete the survey of the specially abled people so that the government's decision of providing financial assistance of Rs 12,000 to each disabled at the rate of Rs 1,000 per month can be given.
He also took stock of

TOKYO (Reuters) - One day when Saburo Kita was 14, he was taken from an institution for troubled children to see a doctor. Despite protesting that his health was fine, he was ordered to strip, lie down on a table, and was given a local anaesthetic.

Pakistan has stepped up security in 17 high risk districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas where a three-day anti-polio drive has been kicked off to vaccinate 4.458 million children.
Coordinator Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) KP Atif Rahman told a meeting here that 14,032 teams comprising trained health workers have been constituted. A total of 9,080 Area In-charges would monitor the anti-polio drive.
As many as 22,000 security personnel have been deployed for providing security to the polio workers in the province.
The meeting was informed that alongside the local population, the anti-polio teams would also administered oral drops at 68 Afghan refugee camps in KP and FATA region.
The current polio epidemiology in the country is the best ever observed with cases declining from 306 in 2014 to 54 in 2015 to 20 in 2016 and 8 in 2017.
In 2018, only one polio case has been reported so far from Dukki district in Balochistan.
Besides Pakistan, polio ..

Shri Krishan Pal Gurjar, Minister of State for Social Justice & Empowerment has said that 1149 Cochlear Implant Surgeries have been conducted successfully during the last 4 years (from 2014-15 to 2017-18).

A ‘Cochlear Implant Awareness Programme’ is being organized by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan), Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in association with Indian Red Cross Society and Sarvodaya Hospital & Research Centre tomorrow on 6th May, 2018 at Huda Convention Centre, Sector-12, Faridabad (Haryana).